Tiger Oz CEO Interview.

[Icarus2001]

I read in the Weekend Australian business section (page 25) an interview with Crawford Rix the (new) CEO of Tiger Australia. I had to have a quiet chuckle about his response to criticism that their on time performance was poor...

Rix repeats his mantra that the on-time performance issues are partly attributable to the airports and the weather and that things will improve when its fleet is bolstered with the delivery of new aircraft later this year.

I guess that means Tiger flys in different weather and to different airports than QF and VB? Tool. The stats are meaningful precisely because all operators face the same issues. The new aircraft will fix the weather and airports how exactly?

Then there was this...

He says that there were some surprises when he came to Australia last year - the biggest being that "nobody has done low-cost properly yet"

Clearly only Tiger "do it properly."

"The things that surprised me were things like the geography, it is such a huge country and the issues that relate to that are different from what I am used to"

Meaning that my UK experience with BmiBaby will mainly be of little use.

[Sunstar320]

I guess that means Tiger flys in different weather and to different airports than QF and VB? Tool. The stats are meaningful precisely because all operators face the same issues. The new aircraft will fix the weather and airports how exactly?

Two reasons. The Majority of flying is in/out of YSSY, with most aircraft rotating a Syd sector, it dosn't take much to get the entire days flying off mark. These new aircraft will not be flying 90-100% capacity as the rest do, gives some flexibility. Also gives some downtime for some of the other 320's to go into heavy maintenance.

And 16/34 sole ops has now come to and end!

Clearly only Tiger "do it properly."
Well when comparing Tiger's CASK to other LCC's, you could say that.

[mcgrath50]

I would say only Tiger do, do it properly. They close the doors the minute they say they will, they weigh your hand luggage on boarding etc. etc.

Who else is there? Virgin isn't LCC anymore and Jetstar is only low cost because it borrows mainline equipment. No one else in Australia domestically is really low cost.

[Dangnammit]

I think their fleet size can account partly to the on time (or lack thereof) performance numbers.
If it's still the same after the new planes arrive, then....:O

[Skystar320]

At the end of the day you pay for what you get. I don't see many people complaining regarding the lateness of scheduled bus / train services?

If anyone has lived in England, you know what I mean

[Icarus2001]

So as the sun sets in the west, where will Mr Rix appear next? Perhaps Singapore after a short break away from the company?

He started in March and will be gone by the end of July.

A couple of possibilities come to mind.

Perhaps he wanted to change things but it was too late, as he arrived about the time of the show cause notice. So maybe he was competent but restricted by TD and could not change anything. Or perhaps he was a puppet of TD and now he will be made to fall on his sword.

His previous experience was at BMIbaby, a loss making airline serving a densely populated country embedded in Europe with a huge leisure travel market. If they could not make it work there then something is definately wrong.

BBC News - Cardiff Airport's future in spotlight as bmibaby exit (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13072157)

After two days in the job, new bmibaby boss makes a quarter of staff redundant - Times Online (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article6903525.ece)

Nov 10, 02:41 PM

Bmibaby is known as an airline which offers low cost flights to lots of passengers.

But it would appear that along with several other airlines it is having trouble navigating its way through the recession. A selection of pilots will lose their jobs at Birmingham Airport among others, and a number of cabin crew positions will also be shed in a bid to save money and restructure the business.

The losses are understandable when you consider that bmibaby is operating at a significant loss. Apparently those losses added up to a whopping £100 million in the last financial year. A new head at the firm, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, has decided on these moves to try and help the company move forward and reduce costs. But of course it is disappointing news for those whose jobs will be immediately affected.


That is AUD$149 million at todays exchange rate.

That makes a AUD$6.7 million loss for Tiger last financial year look pretty good.

[CFD]

Actually I think you will find the 100 million loss was for the entire bmi group, comprising bmi, bmi baby and bmi regional. I believe the vast majority of the loss was from bmi mainline, but happy to be proved wrong.